by Stoker, Bram
“But I beseech you, do not go forth in anger with me. In a long life of acts which were often not pleasant to do, and which sometimes did wring my heart, I have never had so heavy a task as now. Believe me that if the time comes for you to change your mind towards me, one look from you will wipe away all this so sad hour, for I would do what a man can to save you from sorrow. Just think. For why should I give myself so much labor and so much of sorrow? I have come here from my own land to do what I can of good, at the first to please my friend John, and then to help a sweet young lady, whom too, I come to love. For her, I am ashamed to say so much, but I say it in kindness, I gave what you gave, the blood of my veins. I gave it, I who was not, like you, her lover, but only her physician and her friend. I gave her my nights and days, before death, after death, and if my death can do her good even now, when she is the dead UnDead, she shall have it freely.”
He said this with a very grave, sweet pride, and Arthur was much affected by it. He took the old man’s hand and said in a broken voice, “Oh, it is hard to think of it, and I cannot understand, but at least I shall go with you and wait.”
The “evolving” Seward once more. He becomes angry here. Not so many pages ago, he was whining about what fate had tossed his way. He is very near the “superhero” he will have to be, on par with the villain he must defeat … Dracula.
I have spoken at length about foreshadowing. This is of a different variety: a moment of “I can sense what is going to come” on the part of a character.
Using this type of foreshadowing, you could show that a character did indeed have a premonition/intuition of what would happen—or you could make his glimpse of the future that of a blind man, thereby making the moment ironic. After all, we do not usually remember the “prophetic feeling” dreams that do not in any way come true!
Any foreshadowing here? At the very least there’s a pattern developing … and whether or not the characters see it and understand it in time remains to be seen.
Stoker allows us to connect the dots with the mention of the “wolf,” doesn’t he?
Okay, the pronoun it to refer to the child … I can’t explain it either, except to say that it’s grammatically right, but it is likely children weren’t as highly valued in Stoker’s day as they are currently!
When a writer wishes to give the audience some local color, the names of regional showplaces, enterprises, and natural or man-made historical spots, can do it. Jack Straw’s Castle sounds like the name of a local brew-and-burger spot that, even if it were somewhere we didn’t want to visit, could exist.
Readers will grant you more than a little leeway on this issue. There is, not far from my house, an enterprise called God’s Fantastic Mission: Fish and Chips, and Al’s Crummy Donuts just closed down a few years ago.
There are times when Van Helsing seems to have a CV that includes doctor, lawyer, housebreaker.
And now, to get us to the absolute darkest moments, Stoker gives us almost a tick-tick-tick-tick lead-up to this revelation. But our reading pace has picked up because of (a) the details Stoker has given us and (b) the simple sentence structure.
Many of the characters in Dracula who are not particularly “gifted” thinkers regard themselves as rational thinkers. Seward is a man of science. Fortunately, a man of greater scientific knowledge, Dr. Van Helsing, is here to show him that there are illogical worlds that coexist and often touch our rational domain.
This is the “thought he saw” ploy: The character thinks he sees one thing … but the reader knows (or almost knows!) that it is something else.
Confronted by the horror of the moment, Dr. Seward regresses: Rather than accept the truth, he says “No!” like a stubborn toddler. He doesn’t want to say, “Yes.” Yes is too horrible.
Dr. Stoker, here are your colleagues Dr. Jung, Dr. Adler, and Dr. Freud.
Seward might have said something like, “I had the better of my mentor, and I confess, I was proud to point out to him that I knew what he does not.” Instead Stoker does all of this with one word: triumphantly.
These are members of the upper class, and therefore they do as well by this “it” child as might be expected. There are many distinctions between the classes in Dracula—some of which I’ve highlighted—just as there were in the Victorian era (and just as there are in ours).
“ … a shock of surprise and dismay shot through me …” is given to the reader in a “just the facts” manner. The material itself is so powerful it needs no amplification via authorial touches.
“Juggle” does not mean now what it once meant. You can tell from context, however, that here it means some sort of “deceptive or fraudulent illusion.”
Language does change. As writers, we need to consider that.
“That’s a square deal.”
“He’s rather a queer sort.”
“I’m having a gay time.”
The “talk of the times” can give you some of the feeling of the times. If a “jelly bean” is calling a cute co-ed the “bees knees,” you know you are in the “Jazz Age.” But use too much jargon and you’ll run into the same problems that come with diction and dialect. Don’t give the reader something he has to translate in order to understand it.
And that’s no Yabblins.
Stoker once more gets the psychology just right. Even if this were an idea Seward was ready to accept, he is now in the rebellious phase of his relationship with Van Helsing. Children rebel against their parents. Students rebel against their teachers. Seward is true to himself as Stoker is true to human thought and feeling.
So often the rebellious one does not have a plausible response to the person/situation he’s confronting. Think back to some of the responses you gave your parents when you were a teen. What did you say to invasive questions like, “Why did you get drunk and trash the house?,” or “What made you get a tattoo like that, and why did you show it to your grandmother?”
The sulking reaction … the picture of Young Rebel Seward is complete! And the lesson that human relationships are a significant part of every memorable story is emphasized again.
Seward is not at his best when he philosophizes. Perhaps Stoker realized that and here cuts off what could have become philoso-babble.
We know of Stoker’s admiration for and knowledge of Poe and his writing. Poe not only wrote the story “The Premature Burial,” he used the buried-alive theme in “Berenice,” “The Cask of Amontillado,” and “The Fall of the House of Usher.” Every good piece of writing is informed by the writings that came before it. Writers read to learn about writing.
We are coming to realize Van Helsing does indeed have vast knowledge of Dracula and the realm of the supernatural. We are also seeing that he is a brave man, ready to tackle Evil.
He does. And now Seward is going overboard with his “defiant rebel” stance. He’ll do more in a moment, questioning Van Helsing’s actions, motivations, and sanity. Overboard is characteristic of teen rebellion, isn’t it?
In spite of what Van Helsing says here, desecration of the dead—which is what Arthur is likely to see as Van Helsing’s plan—will most likely violate Arthur’s “honour as a gentleman or (his) faith as a Christian.”
It really is time for a Van Helsing information dump, but he doesn’t provide it, and he cannot because Stoker has given us a character who tantalizingly lets clues out like a slow dripping faucet. That’s the man’s style, and we know it by now.
Whoo! That’s a heavy one.
Totally credible reaction!
No less credible. Van Helsing can be a rock. We’ve seen that before.
Arthur the forthright has become, credibly, Arthur as Hamlet. He does not know what he should do and so must enter a period of “watchful waiting”—which, as the chapter ends, is another cliff-hanger, albeit a low-key one.
Chapter 16
DR. SEWARD’S DIARY—CONT.
It was just a quarter before twelve o’clock when we got into the churchyard over the low wall. The night was d
ark with occasional gleams of moonlight between the dents of the heavy clouds that scudded across the sky. We all kept somehow close together, with Van Helsing slightly in front as he led the way. When we had come close to the tomb I looked well at Arthur, for I feared the proximity to a place laden with so sorrowful a memory would upset him, but he bore himself well. I took it that the very mystery of the proceeding was in some way a counteractant to his grief. The Professor unlocked the door, and seeing a natural hesitation amongst us for various reasons, solved the difficulty by entering first himself. The rest of us followed, and he closed the door. He then lit a dark lantern and pointed to a coffin. Arthur stepped forward hesitatingly. Van Helsing said to me:—
“You were with me here yesterday. Was the body of Miss Lucy in that coffin?”
“It was.”
The Professor turned to the rest saying, “You hear, and yet there is no one who does not believe with me.” He took his screwdriver and again took off the lid of the coffin. Arthur looked on, very pale but silent. When the lid was removed he stepped forward. He evidently did not know that there was a leaden coffin, or at any rate, had not thought of it. When he saw the rent in the lead, the blood rushed to his face for an instant, but as quickly fell away again, so that he remained of a ghastly whiteness. He was still silent. Van Helsing forced back the leaden flange, and we all looked in and recoiled.
The coffin was empty!
For several minutes no one spoke a word. The silence was broken by Quincey Morris, “Professor, I answered for you. Your word is all I want. I wouldn’t ask such a thing ordinarily, I wouldn’t so dishonour you as to imply a doubt, but this is a mystery that goes beyond any honour or dishonour. Is this your doing?”
“I swear to you by all that I hold sacred that I have not removed or touched her. What happened was this. Two nights ago my friend Seward and I came here, with good purpose, believe me. I opened that coffin, which was then sealed up, and we found it as now, empty. We then waited, and saw something white come through the trees. The next day we came here in daytime and she lay there. Did she not, friend John?”
“Yes.”
“That night we were just in time. One more so small child was missing, and we find it, thank God, unharmed amongst the graves. Yesterday I came here before sundown, for at sundown the UnDead can move. I waited here all night till the sun rose, but I saw nothing. It was most probable that it was because I had laid over the clamps of those doors garlic, which the UnDead cannot bear, and other things which they shun. Last night there was no exodus, so tonight before the sundown I took away my garlic and other things. And so it is we find this coffin empty. But bear with me. So far there is much that is strange. Wait you with me outside, unseen and unheard, and things much stranger are yet to be. So,” here he shut the dark slide of his lantern, “now to the outside.” He opened the door, and we filed out, he coming last and locking the door behind him.
Oh! But it seemed fresh and pure in the night air after the terror of that vault. How sweet it was to see the clouds race by, and the passing gleams of the moonlight between the scudding clouds crossing and passing, like the gladness and sorrow of a man’s life. How sweet it was to breathe the fresh air, that had no taint of death and decay. How humanizing to see the red lighting of the sky beyond the hill, and to hear far away the muffled roar that marks the life of a great city. Each in his own way was solemn and overcome. Arthur was silent, and was, I could see, striving to grasp the purpose and the inner meaning of the mystery. I was myself tolerably patient, and half inclined again to throw aside doubt and to accept Van Helsing’s conclusions. Quincey Morris was phlegmatic in the way of a man who accepts all things, and accepts them in the spirit of cool bravery, with hazard of all he has at stake. Not being able to smoke, he cut himself a good-sized plug of tobacco and began to chew. As to Van Helsing, he was employed in a definite way. First he took from his bag a mass of what looked like thin, wafer-like biscuit, which was carefully rolled up in a white napkin. Next he took out a double handful of some whitish stuff, like dough or putty. He crumbled the wafer up fine and worked it into the mass between his hands. This he then took, and rolling it into thin strips, began to lay them into the crevices between the door and its setting in the tomb. I was somewhat puzzled at this, and being close, asked him what it was that he was doing. Arthur and Quincey drew near also, as they too were curious.
He answered, “I am closing the tomb so that the UnDead may not enter.”
“And is that stuff you have there going to do it?”
“It is.”
“What is that which you are using?” This time the question was by Arthur. Van Helsing reverently lifted his hat as he answered.
“The Host. I brought it from Amsterdam. I have an Indulgence.” It was an answer that appalled the most sceptical of us, and we felt individually that in the presence of such earnest purpose as the Professor’s, a purpose which could thus use the to him most sacred of things, it was impossible to distrust. In respectful silence we took the places assigned to us close round the tomb, but hidden from the sight of any one approaching. I pitied the others, especially Arthur. I had myself been apprenticed by my former visits to this watching horror, and yet I, who had up to an hour ago repudiated the proofs, felt my heart sink within me. Never did tombs look so ghastly white. Never did cypress, or yew, or juniper so seem the embodiment of funeral gloom. Never did tree or grass wave or rustle so ominously. Never did bough creak so mysteriously, and never did the far-away howling of dogs send such a woeful presage through the night.
There was a long spell of silence, big, aching, void, and then from the Professor a keen “S-s-s-s!” He pointed, and far down the avenue of yews we saw a white figure advance, a dim white figure, which held something dark at its breast. The figure stopped, and at the moment a ray of moonlight fell upon the masses of driving clouds, and showed in startling prominence a dark-haired woman, dressed in the cerements of the grave. We could not see the face, for it was bent down over what we saw to be a fair-haired child. There was a pause and a sharp little cry, such as a child gives in sleep, or a dog as it lies before the fire and dreams. We were starting forward, but the Professor’s warning hand, seen by us as he stood behind a yew tree, kept us back. And then as we looked the white figure moved forwards again. It was now near enough for us to see clearly, and the moonlight still held. My own heart grew cold as ice, and I could hear the gasp of Arthur, as we recognized the features of Lucy Westenra. Lucy Westenra, but yet how changed. The sweetness was turned to adamantine, heartless cruelty, and the purity to voluptuous wantonness. Van Helsing stepped out, and obedient to his gesture, we all advanced too. The four of us ranged in a line before the door of the tomb. Van Helsing raised his lantern and drew the slide. By the concentrated light that fell on Lucy’s face we could see that the lips were crimson with fresh blood, and that the stream had trickled over her chin and stained the purity of her lawn death-robe.
We shuddered with horror. I could see by the tremulous light that even Van Helsing’s iron nerve had failed. Arthur was next to me, and if I had not seized his arm and held him up, he would have fallen.
When Lucy—I call the thing that was before us Lucy because it bore her shape— saw us she drew back with an angry snarl, such as a cat gives when taken unawares, then her eyes ranged over us. Lucy’s eyes in form and colour, but Lucy’s eyes unclean and full of hell fire, instead of the pure, gentle orbs we knew. At that moment the remnant of my love passed into hate and loathing. Had she then to be killed, I could have done it with savage delight. As she looked, her eyes blazed with unholy light, and the face became wreathed with a voluptuous smile. Oh, God, how it made me shudder to see it! With a careless motion, she flung to the ground, callous as a devil, the child that up to now she had clutched strenuously to her breast, growling over it as a dog growls over a bone. The child gave a sharp cry, and lay there moaning. There was a cold-bloodedness in the act which wrung a groan from Arthur. When she advanced to him with outstretched
arms and a wanton smile he fell back and hid his face in his hands.
She still advanced, however, and with a languorous, voluptuous grace, said, “Come to me, Arthur. Leave these others and come to me. My arms are hungry for you. Come, and we can rest together. Come, my husband, come!”
There was something diabolically sweet in her tones, something of the tinkling of glass when struck, which rang through the brains even of us who heard the words addressed to another. As for Arthur, he seemed under a spell, moving his hands from his face, he opened wide his arms. She was leaping for them, when Van Helsing sprang forward and held between them his little golden crucifix. She recoiled from it, and, with a suddenly distorted face, full of rage, dashed past him as if to enter the tomb.
When within a foot or two of the door, however, she stopped, as if arrested by some irresistible force. Then she turned, and her face was shown in the clear burst of moonlight and by the lamp, which had now no quiver from Van Helsing’s nerves. Never did I see such baffled malice on a face, and never, I trust, shall such ever be seen again by mortal eyes. The beautiful colour became livid, the eyes seemed to throw out sparks of hell fire, the brows were wrinkled as though the folds of flesh were the coils of Medusa’s snakes, and the lovely, blood-stained mouth grew to an open square, as in the passion masks of the Greeks and Japanese. If ever a face meant death, if looks could kill, we saw it at that moment.
And so for full half a minute, which seemed an eternity, she remained between the lifted crucifix and the sacred closing of her means of entry. Van Helsing broke the silence by asking Arthur:—
“Answer me, oh my friend! Am I to proceed in my work?”
“Do as you will, friend. Do as you will. There can be no horror like this ever any more.” And he groaned in spirit. Quincey and I simultaneously moved towards him, and took his arms. We could hear the click of the closing lantern as Van Helsing held it down. Coming close to the tomb, he began to remove from the chinks some of the sacred emblem which he had placed there. We all looked on with horrified amazement as we saw, when he stood back, the woman, with a corporeal body as real at that moment as our own, pass through the interstice where scarce a knife blade could have gone. We all felt a glad sense of relief when we saw the Professor calmly restoring the strings of putty to the edges of the door.
